1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a film handling system which eliminates the need for external bags to convey individual film orders to the processing laboratory, and more specifically, to a system comprising, in part, a point of sale terminal for producing a bar-coded label for placing directly on the film, enabling the film to be transported bagless to the processing laboratory, and enabling other downstream processing steps to be automated.
2. Background Information
In a conventional film handling system, a customer will walk into a dealer location, and submit film for processing. The customer or a clerk at the dealer location will then take a bag with a pre-printed dealer number and order number, write the customer's name, address, and phone number on the bag, check various boxes on the bag to select certain features or processing options, including, inter alia, film size, print size, paper finish, quantity of prints, etc., deposit the film into the bag, and then drop the bag into a box containing other bags of film destined for the processing laboratory. The clerk will also prepare a claim check for the customer, so that the customer can later reclaim his order.
The clerk then normally manually records the transaction on a log sheet by writing the customer name, phone number, and order number on the bag sheet. This information will enable the clerk to reconstruct the transaction later on if the customer loses his claim check, for example.
The bags of film are then shipped to the processing lab, where they are sorted into batches according to the processing options checked on the bags so that films that will be processed similarly will be placed in the same batch. Each batch of films is then typically placed in a plastic barrel for transport to a splicing machine.
At the splicing machine, the films in a particular batch are spliced together using splices having eye readable order numbers, which numbers are the same order numbers printed on the bags for the corresponding films.
The spliced film is then developed and printed onto a roll of print paper, which roll is then exposed. The roll of negatives and corresponding roll of exposed prints are then cut, matched, and packaged manually, and then reinserted into the original bag for return to the dealer and pick-up by the customer.
When the customer initially submits his order, he is handed a claim check which he uses to claim his order. If a customer comes in to claim his order, and the order has not come back from the lab, however, the log sheet is then used to obtain the dealer number and order number for his order, and also, in general, is used to verify that the particular customer, in fact, placed the order in the first instance. If so, the dealer and order number are used to make an inquiry at the lab regarding the status of the order.
The conventional system described above is almost entirely manual, and is therefore labor intensive, low productivity, slow, and a bottleneck in photofinishing. Specifically, the filling out of information on the customer's order bag, the placing of the film into the bag, the logging of a transaction onto a log sheet, the sorting of orders into batches, and the feeding of film orders into the splicer at the processing laboratory are all manual steps and hence inefficient steps in the system.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a bagless film handling system which eliminates the use of order bags to convey film orders to the processing lab by automatically producing a label with machine readable order information for placing directly on the film for transport to the lab, which enables the film orders to be transported to the lab without being placed in individual bags, and which further automates the steps of logging transactions into the log sheet, sorting orders into batches, and feeding film batches into the splicer.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows or may be learned by practice of the invention.